


All That Truly Matters

by Ambyrfire



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Experiential Narrative, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-04 02:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambyrfire/pseuds/Ambyrfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"You’re crouching, turning, and</em> It<em> is turning too but you’re smaller, faster. Sweat-slick fingers tense on the handles of your swords. Fire right wire- as soon as the meaty </em>thunk <em>of the anchor hitting home on the mountainous shoulder meets your ears, you run.<br/>The thud-thud-thud of your boots against the weathered roof tiles keeps time with the frantic beat of your heat. You swallow the sour taste of blood and terror and</em> leap-"</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Truly Matters

Your fingers scrabble, desperate, scraping. Breath torn ragged from your throat, heart rattling its way out of the cage that is your ribs.

            Is that you screaming?

            A frantic shift, a catch- your feet stand firm on the cracked roof tiles. A gasp, a small space of calm caught within the wild churn of battle. Tremors shake through the stones, massive footfalls juddering the earth.

            To the right- a crash, a plume of steam and blood from a fallen monster. But so many, _so many_ more, lumbering slow and clumsy, twisted leering smiles and twisted groping hands reaching, reaching. A scream, cut off with horrible suddenness.

 A battle cry echoes rage and terror across the shattered buildings and death-sharp metal gleams blue-silver under the cutting sun. Hiss of wires, flesh parting like water beneath the double blades in a spray of boiling blood.

Your hand tightens on the trigger that fires your wire, and you are flying across the canyon that is the street before you even have time to consciously register the massive teeth that crunch shut on the roof tiles you stood on a second before.

It _is_ you screaming.

You crash onto the opposing roof, jarring pain through your shoulder, side, skull, vision blurring, jagged edges biting into your skin. No time for pain, no time to recover, _get up_ -

You’re crouching, turning, and _It_ is turning too but you’re smaller, faster. Sweat-slick fingers tense on the handles of your swords. Fire right wire- as soon as the meaty _thunk_ of the anchor hitting home on the mountainous shoulder meets your ears, you run.

The thud-thud-thud of your boots against the weathered roof tiles keeps time with the frantic beat of your heat. You swallow the sour taste of blood and terror and _leap_ -

Air whistles over your skin, spreads your green cloak behind you like wings as you soar wide over the _thing’s_ grasping fingers and staring teeth.  The shrill of your wire reeling in is the only sound other than the rush of wind, the panicked racing of your breath, the fear-rushed pace of your pulse. The weight of your blades raised to strike is nothing, _nothing_ , to the singing dread that burns through your veins, the singing tension of your sinews, the singing of split space past breath-thin-fury-sharp metal.

The vast, deadly creature is slow, too slow, as you shoot around to its nape on your ever-shortening gear wire, and light shatters off the blades into your eyes and your stomach _twists_ as the world seems to focus down onto this one point, this one tearing, grasping second with you flying right through the center of it, just you and death dancing under the noonday sun -

Strike,

_Strike_ ,

Strike now,

NOW,

_STRIKE_ -

The heavy resisting sink of your twin swords into the monster’s flesh jolts through the taut muscles of your arms, jarring your sweaty grip on the handles. Fresh blood spatters your hands, arms, cloak, face, hot and clinging, and flecks your snarl-bared teeth with red. Time is sliding, sliding, through the frantic beat of _life_ -

And you’re past, adversary collapsing onto a pile of rubble and already just a mass of steaming, dissolving limbs. There’s a jerk, a fraction of a second of sinking, as your other wire catches you just as you begin to fall, and you fling onto the crumbling top of another building and barely feel it as your knees hit the broken tiles. Hunched over, shadows in your eyes and pooling below you on the roof, wavering as the blood evaporates off of your body, your soul. A breath, long and deep. You let it fill you from the top of your skull to the base of your spine. A moment, just a moment of release in the eye of the storm. And-

This time, _this time_ you made it, and next time you might not, might meet an ugly death crushed and torn to pieces by massive blood-soaked teeth, but it doesn’t matter. You might not be alive in two years, or two months, or two weeks, or two days, or two hours, or two minutes, or two seconds-

 But in _this_ moment, _this_ instant, right _here_ , right _now_ , with your blood singing and your heart racing and your body thrumming, _you are alive_. And _that_ -

That is all that truly matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> This started as a sort of writing exercise for me, to push myself to go outside of my comfort zone stylistically, and to just get out some of my thoughts and ideas about snk. And then it sort of... went beyond my control and turned into a full-blown fic.  
> This work actually marks several firsts for me: my first time writing in this style, my first fic on AO3, and indeed, my first published fic on any site. I feel a touch proud of myself, actually, for gathering the confidence to do this.
> 
> Critiques, kudos, comments, bookmarks, and any other things you want to fling at me are all welcome and greatly appreciated!


End file.
